I have just returned from southern India after a 9 day retreat. I have not been to India for four years and I had not realized how anesthetized I had become to the society I live and work in.
It's so easy to become hypnotized to out daily life until we are removed from it, then suddenly the veil can be pulled from our eyes.
40-50 oC helps with the disorientation as well!
Where I went took a nine hour flight from London followed by a four hour taxi ride into dust track country side. I remember the first time I arrived in India, nothing prepared me for what I saw.
I realized how I had spent my entire life in a sterilized society which had fed me with all my beliefs and values and suddenly those beliefs and values were being seriously violated and I was shocked.
After a short while I befriended a family in a small village I was staying in. Their openness and attitude to life was as radical from mine as a footballer finding himself at a baseball match with the wrong clothes on! But what is interesting is when a person is removed from their cultural identity the sudden realization that what one takes for granted at home and consequently builds ideas around has nothing to do with life and the rich tapestries of our real inner truth.
That first visit gave me a valuable lesson in the simple things in life like how grateful I was that I had clean running water which I had never even given a thought about, it was just there, and how now I appreciated what an incredible gift that was. And a toilet that worked!
Let alone the fact that I ate at regular intervals with what ever I wanted!
What hit me was that here were people who had nothing by my western standards, but were spiritually so wealthy that I felt like a beggar in their company.
It's not that they did not want to have things but that our perspectives were so different.
I remember coming home and feeling like my society was spiritually starved and that we were the ones who had scraps in our bowls.
This time the reminders again hit home of how lucky I am.
I was crossing a road which was dirty, busy and noisy. There was something holding the traffic up. I was looking to see what it was about 30 feet in front of me and I could not make sense of the image my eyes were trying to convey.
It looked like some kind of animal, when I finally was able to make sense of it, it was a girl in her late teens I suppose who was walking on all fours but with the back to the ground. She had sandals on her hands and feet and was carrying a big case on her stomach. A man was walking along side of her to protect her because the cars etc could not see this women only a foot off the ground.
She was making slow tiny steps because her legs could did not move other than a few inches in that position. Finally with a lot of effort she crossed the road. She had dignity as she went her way. I realized that everything for her must be an immense struggle and yet she was getting on with it. I thought to myself about how easy it was for me to complain about this that and every thing back home, the slightest ailment, how I would complain about running errands when I was tired. It was a sober lesson in humility and gratitude.
When I get clients who struggle and complain I think to myself about that women crossing the road, if she can put that effort in to live then we can all learn to count our blessings and remember problems are only a perspective of attitude. It starts in the heart and is highly contagious, it's called unconditional love, and it is the most powerful tool in our hypnotherapy tool kit, it's a shame that it rarely gets a mention
but then it only works when it goes unnoticed. Who can you infect today with the unseen cure?
Love and peace
Peter